Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success : A Self-management Approach

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MANAGEMENT OF EMOTION AND EFFORT 117

Environmental Beliefs, Interpretation Emotional–

events perceptions self-talk physical

(irrational ideas) reactions

FIG. 5.1. How beliefs influence your emotions (adapted from Davis, Eshelman,

& McKay, 2000).

emotions have nothing to do with actual events. In between the acti-

vating event (A) and the emotion (C) are realistic or unrealistic beliefs

and self-talk (B). It is the self-talk that produces the emotions. Your

own thoughts, directed and controlled by you, are what create emo-

tions like shame, anxiety, anger, and depression.

Figure 5.1 illustrates the relationship between environmental events

and emotional and physical responses. It is your beliefs and percep-

tions that stimulate your feelings and your actions. A person or event

can’t make you feel bad. You make yourself feel bad. In other words,

you feel the way you think.

The process can be depicted in the following manner:

(A) “My friend didn’t listen to my feelings when I said that

I was depressed.”

(B) “I can’t stand it when someone doesn’t listen to me. I

must not be very important to him or her.”

(C) “I am really angry.”

As you see in the example, your belief system (beliefs or perceptions)

stimulates your feelings and your actions. You direct your actions by

your belief that your friend doesn’t think you are very important to

him or her.

Whether you realize it or not, you spend most of the day engaging

in self-talk, your internal thought language. (Yes, you do talk to your-

self!) These are the words you use to describe and interpret the world.

If your self-talk is accurate and in touch with reality, you function

well and feel good about situations. If, however, your self-talk is irra-

tional and untrue, then you will tend to feel stressful and uncom-

fortable. The following sentence is an example of irrational self-talk:

“I must be liked by everyone!” Who says that everyone must like you?

Can you get along knowing that one of your colleagues or peers may

not like you?

Here’s some other irrational self-talk: “I should never cry in front

of other people” or “I can’t allow anyone to hurt my feelings” or “I

can’t allow myself to fail at anything” or “There is only one person

in the world who will truly love me.”

Irrational ideas differ greatly. Some ideas are based on mispercep-

tions (e.g., When the car’s wheels shake, I know they are going to fall